I Don't Want to Forget
by Aquile Storm
Summary: She lives in a bright vibrant life but hers is forecasted with a dark future. She has one decision to make: Lose a life… or live a life without memories. Which would you choose? IchiRuki


**A/N: **Inspired by watching YUI's Goodbye Days PV endlessly while writing this ;) (No connection to the real PV, but it sparked this instead XD)

Also, I'm kinda addicted to the theme of 'Memories' these days, I noticed XD

Written for **LazyMew**,who is 'beyond awesome' ;D And also** wickedsistah1024**, who should write more IchiRuki soon! XDD

* * *

**I Don't Want to Forget**

_Hisa-san,_

_A dilemma is encompassing my mind._

_Lose a life… or live a life without memories. _

_Which would you choose, Hisa-san?_

※

"Yuzu! Turn around!"

The girl of fourteen turned around from the stove and gave the camcorder a peace sign, smiling brightly. "This is Yuzu, cheerful, optimistic, and a super awesome cook," Rukia's disembodied voice floated from a near distance.

"Speaking of awesome cooks; right now, she's cooking—" She whispered to the Kurosaki girl, "What are you cooking?"

"Gyoza for tonight's dinner," Yuzu answered.

"Gyoza for tonight's dinner," she repeated. The camera dips down to the ground, showing the beige flooring, the swings back up, showing an out-of-focus dining table and chairs. The camera swivels to reveal Rukia's face. Rukia said, "So, we'll get to eat gyoza for tonight." A flash of Rukia's contagious grin, then a tinkle of Yuzu's laughter from the background.

"This is Kuchiki Rukia reporting from the Kurosaki Kitchen."

※

_Hisa-san,_

_I decided to choose my first choice… _

_I'm not willing to lose all this._

_It feels right… but __is__ it?_

_Do __you__ think I'm making the correct choice though?_

※

"This is Karin-chan, doing her homework."

Karin looked up from the books and gave the briefest of smiles to the camera. "What's this?" Rukia asked. Karin flipped the books to its cover.

"Math. Algebra."

"Ew."

Laughter from both parties was heard. "I'm going to film you studying," Rukia said finally. The camera zoomed in onto Karin's face. She looked half annoyed, half amused.

"Oi," she said. "Don't. I'm losing my focus."

Rukia got up and leaned straight to Karin. An image of _x_'s and _y_'s —blurred— was seen on the camcorder screen. Scrawls to numbers were seen on scrap pieces of paper.

"It's algebra, Karin! You _will_ lose focus!"

Both can't help but to laugh.

※

_Hisa-san,_

_I saw him looking worriedly over me when I was reading. He knew too, of course, but we didn't talk about it. No one in this house does. We think it's better if we just let me to keep smiling, keep pretending like it didn't happened._

_I nearly fell when I was walking down the stairs today too. He was there to catch me. I saw the worry and anxiety in his eyes. It seemed to say that I made the wrong choice, that I should stop this stubbornness now._

_But his mouth just said, "Be careful next time, midget."_

_Was he right? Should I stop 'this stubbornness'?_

※

The first thing heard in this recording session was a nearby yell. And a scream. Then a curse and the scrape of metal chair legs to the floor. Then slapping sounds and fist meeting air.

"This," Rukia proclaimed, "is the Kurosaki Household, dinner time."

Ichigo stepped on a chair and tried to grab hold of the piece of salmon Isshin had in his chopsticks. Isshin pushed himself —and the chair— back, evading his son.

"Onii-chan! We have more salmon here!"

"No way! If I let him take it, it means that this old man won! And there is NO WAY that is going to happen! GIVE IT BACK, OLD MAN!"

"Not going to, my son!"

"Onii-chan! Otou-san!"

"Yuzu, more rice, please."

"Karin-chan!"

Finally the screen turned away from the ugly scene of son VS father and back to a grinning Rukia. "Don't you just feel the love~?" she asked the imaginary audience as a fishball flew behind her head.

※

_Hisa-san,_

_Things have been spinning out of control lately. You know the game where people spread their arms and just spin…? Hisa-san, you know that feeling when we finally collapse? When the ground floats and sky dips dangerously down? In my head, that is what's happening except, none of this is fun. None of it. _

_Today I had to sit out of the usual two-round run during PE class. My head was participating in the dizzy game during that time. He saw me, I think, and he told me —in his brash way— to sit out of it. And I did; I sat underneath one of the trees in the field with my head between my legs. _

_Useless. I felt useless. _

※

"Can I tell you something?" Rukia whispered to the camera, a grave look etched on her closed up face. "I think he talked the teachers into letting me bring this camcorder to school." A laugh. A grin. Then her eyes looked away from the lens, as if contemplating something. "Yup," she concluded. "He's still an idiot." She had that thinking look on again.

"But he's a caring idiot," she added at last.

"Now see." The camera rotated to reveal all the classmates of class 3-1 all geared up on the field. Some are throwing balls, swinging bats at imaginary targets, trying on gloves and catching hurtling balls. Rukia's face filled the screen again, a smile etched on her face—as always when she was filming herself. "I'm not joining this time," she said. "But! Let's watch the others play."

"This is the preparation for our annual inter-class baseball tournament, and this is Kuchiki Rukia reporting this great event," again, Rukia's disembodied voice announced. "Firstly we have…umm, that person as the first batter with Tatsuki as the pitcher."

The camera recorded that person's hits —one of very, very few— and followed its curving arc that was heading straight… at Rukia. A yell was heard, then the screen showed the earth in an apparent earthquake—where all the colours merged and mixed together. Then the shaking stopped.

"Please be careful!" the built-in microphone recorded Rukia's voice (the screen showed the field and the players' feet as captured from the ground) and the muffled apology from the players on the field.

The screen showed the scuffle of her feet as she threw the ball back at the players. Then the earthquake shook and rumbled again and Rukia was sitting back down under the tree with the camera distractedly lopsided as it showed the practice session.

A wistful whisper was heard, "I wish I could join them."

※

_Hisa-san,_

_People's faces seem to fade right before my eyes. Their names were disintegrating in my mind. Their voices seem strange and distant. Their closeness scares me. Their touches are like static electric._

_Friends and classmates are like strangers to me. _

_I'm terrified to death. _

_Someone please help me_…

※

"Oh, Kurosaki-san is watching a documentary while eating a mandarin orange in the kotatsu."

Isshin looked up and smiled at Rukia, then at the camera. He waved, and made a pose. From the background, Rukia giggled. The screen zoomed into the documentary—it showed a computer generated image of a human skeleton and its muscles as it sprinted a 100-metre race.

"Want an orange, my dear?"

The camera zoomed out from the ligaments and tendons shown in the TV and back at Isshin. He was holding out an orange. The screen moved from side to side—it was answering Rukia for her.

"You look pale, Rukia-chan. Eat one!"

"Always with vibrancy and persuasion—this is Kurosaki Isshin-san!" commented Rukia, a grin bordering her lips. A slender arm appeared on-screen and took the orange from Isshin's extended hand. "Thank you, Kurosaki-san."

The camera lowers its scenery then swivels to face the TV again. Rukia was sitting beside Isshin as they both ate the orange.

"Rukia-chan," Isshin's voice called out. The camera recorded his slightly worried face. "You really do look pale today." Isshin was out of focus as he leaned over and pressed his hand over her forehead.

Rukia smiled and dismissed it.

※

_Hisa-san,_

_I woke up in his arms this morning._

_I remember crying last night. I tried my best to stop, or at least cry softly, but my head hurt so badly. Like a hundred pound lead ball was bashing against the inside of my head. I think he came into the room and just held me tight. I don't think I stopped crying—not even when he shushed me gently. _

_Hisa-san,_

_I don't know how long I was crying in his arms, but I knew that after a while I fell asleep there. He stayed with me until morning. _

_He didn't ask when I went down for breakfast that morning. He didn't even bring up the situation. No one else did either, even if I knew that everyone was aware at what happened. Everyone acted as usual._

_It was like it never happened. _

_I wanted to think that it really didn't._

_I want to think that __none of this__ is happening to me. _

※

"This is the place where I sleep."

The screen showed a small room—much too small for three beds to be cramped up together. Two separate small-sized desks with various stationary of every colour imaginable on its surface. A rabbit plush lay on one of the beds, his ears flopped to either side of his face and his arms and head limp, looking downwards.

"He gave this to me," she almost whispered. "For my…" Her voice faltered and gradually grew into silence. Her head shook in desperation. She needed to remember. "For Christmas, maybe… I don't know."

Rukia stood up, and the camera's recorded scenery also rose. A determined voice was heard as the doors of the rooms were closed, "Must hurry."

※

_Hisa-san,_

_My heart is thumping. _

_I don't know why._

_I just know that I'm really scared now._

_I want him to hold me tight now. Please, please, please. Please come home quick. Please be here. Please hold me in your arms. Please don't let go. _

_I'm scared. _

_I'm really scared. _

_Please, please, please…_

※

The door opened and as she stepped inside, his room, although in semi-darkness, came into view. And there he was, sleeping in his bed, as soundly as a baby. His figure neared a step closer to the screen. And another, and another. Until the holder of the camera was finally at the side of his bed and crouched down.

He was facing the camera, his face showed nothing but calmness and serenity. His usually knotted eyebrows were finally loosened. His mouth was opened just a crack as he breathed, softly, evenly, in the night.

This time she had nothing to say; let the images say the things for her.

Her arm was shown on screen. Hesitatingly, she reached out and touched his face. He didn't stir. She traced the curvature of his cheek like it was the most valuable porcelain ever made. He still didn't stir.

Somewhere, her ethereal voice whispered, "I love you, Ichigo…"

※

_Hisa-san,_

_If I were to join you now in heaven, I wouldn't have a single sliver of regret in my heart._

_Not one._

_Only… _

_I have one request if something __did__ happen: Just let me fall in love with him again._

※

It felt like a brief static shock so Rukia dismissed it. She laid her head on the bed, watching him sleep, like it was the most interesting thing ever. That probably wasn't true. But he was the most beautiful thing she had seen.

That static electricity felt a bit more piercing.

And then it felt like an electric shock coursing through her brain.

Rukia pulled back and clutched her head. The camcorder dropped to the floor with a clatter. Ichigo stirred. Rukia gasped. It felt like someone was scraping the inside of her head with an iron nail and bashing her brain with a ball peen hammer. Her head was screeching. A million birds shrieking, a thousand glasses shattering, a hundred opera singers. Rukia let out a cry— she couldn't bear the pain anymore. Her arms were around her head as she kneeled on the floor.

The camcorder recorded nothing but the black darkness and the sounds of her cries.

"Wh—?" Ichigo's voice was recorded in the tape. "Rukia…?" A heavy ruffling of his bed sheets was heard. "Rukia!"

The camcorder only recorded the horrifying sounds that night.

Her cries of pain.

His shouts of fear and panic.

Feet thumping the ground.

Doors slammed open.

Orders directed.

…A distant sound of an ambulance.

_Please hold me in your arms. Please don't let go. Please, please, please…_

ஐ

She wakes.

He rushes to her side. Maybe it is a figment of his imagination, but she jumps slightly. Her eyes are wide with incomprehension, maybe anxiety, maybe _fear_…? She jerks away from his touch, like acid to skin. Confused, maybe? She has been unconscious after a grueling six-hour operation. Thankfully, the operation was successful, but…

But…

He is scared to ask this, because he is afraid of the answer.

He has to… he _has_ to ask this.

"Do you… remember me?"

There is a long period of silence and a tense feeling of apprehension. After what seems like a million years, she shakes her head. He could feel his heart tear behind his ribcage, but he has no choice but to smile at her, albeit emptily.

No one to blame… no one.

She feels awkward, he could see—wouldn't you feel the same way? He rummages his bag and takes out a well-leafed book and a camcorder. "Here," he says, "These are yours… I didn't look through the book or watch the video tape. Just didn't feel right."

She looks back at him with those striking violet eyes, filled with confusion. He places the camcorder on her lap and the book in her hands. "Take it, really. If you're not comfortable to read while I'm here, I'll leave." He gets up to leave, but she takes hold of his hand and stops him.

She still hasn't said anything yet, but he just smiles and sits himself on a nearby hospital chair. She takes the camcorder and pressed the 'play' button.

"_This is Yuzu, cheerful, optimistic, and a super awesome cook."_  
"_Gyoza for tonight's dinner."  
_

"_This is Karin-chan, doing her homework."  
"Math. Algebra."  
__"__Ew."_

"_Oh, Kurosaki-san is watching a documentary while eating a mandarin orange in the kotatsu."_  
"_Want an orange, my dear?"_

"_I wish I could join them…"_

"_This is the place where I sleep."_  
"_He gave this to me… for my… for Christmas, maybe… I don't know…"_

"_I love y—"_

She stops the playback. Her downcast eyes are slowly filling. What is this…? He looks up, a worried expression sweeps over his face. He whispers her name, like a breath of April's air. He sits at the chair beside her bed.

A teardrop falls from her eyes. He reaches out to wipe it away from her cheeks.

Their eyes connect.

She knew those eyes… those beautiful golden eyes.

She knew this warmth… like hot chocolate on a winter's day.

She knew… but she just can't _remember_.

Her tears fall in frustration.

ஐ

She read the book he left her. It is a book of thoughts in the form of unsent letters to a person called 'Hisa-san'. She couldn't remember who Hisa-san was, but she uttered a silent thank you to her for being there to listen. Hisa-san must have been someone special in her life, she knew that too.

And then there was him. He… meant something to her_— _she knew that_. _

And with Hisa-san by her side… it gave her courage to finally speak to him.

"I'm… Kuchiki Rukia," she says.

He smiles… and she recognizes it.

"Kurosaki Ichigo," he introduces.

His hand tightly clasped over hers.

…_Just let me fall in love with him again._

_

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**A/N:** I think my writing skills have deteriorated—after three weeks of nothing but cold hard exams. D:

What do you guys think though? :)

Thanks for stopping by, btw :)


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